The two-Palestine solution
By Charles A. Morse
web posted April 22, 2002
While the Palestinian Authority asked the nations of the world to
recognize its sovereignty, it armed itself with offensive weapons,
allowed anti-Israel militias to operate freely, and allowed these
militias, along with its own Israeli trained army, to invade Israel
by, among other actions, sending in mass murderers. Israel has
now gone in and done the job the PA was supposed to do under
the Oslo Accords, which was to quell such militias. Arafat
promised to negotiate peacefully, and renounced the use of
terror, in English, at a White House ceremony 1995 in which he
shook hands with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. This promise
proved to be worthless and Arafat, and the PA have, as a result
of their perfidy and the subsequent terror they initiated, sold out,
forever, the possibility of the creation of a third Palestinian State.
The PA is complicit in internationally recognized acts of war
against Israel in the same way as the Taliban government of
Afghanistan was complicit in the World Trade Center attack.
According to the Debkafile article "U.S. has Small Plans for
Arafat," (April 21) a plan is being discussed, in the aftermath of
Israel's routing out most of the militia forces and seizing the heavy
weapons and bomb factories on the West Bank, in which Arafat
and the PA would be sent to Gaza where Israel and Egypt can
keep close reigns on their activities. The existence of this plan
possibly explains why Sharon didn't include Gaza in the most
recent military action. The theory is that by isolating Arafat in
Gaza, local groups in West Bank cities such as Hebron, Nablus,
and Ramallah could form regional self-ruling authorities, which
would maintain only formal ties to a PA separated in Gaza.
The interesting nuance to this plan, one which, albeit imperfectly,
harkens to a long term solution to the conflict, is that Jordan will
replace the PA, de facto, as the administering authority in the
West Bank along with Israel, hence, the two Palestine solution.
The historic and undisputable fact is that both Israel and Jordan
are Palestine. The British Mandate of Palestine, formally part of
the Ottoman Province of Syria, created in 1919, included the
area that now makes up Israel and Jordan. In 1923, the British
divided its Palestine Mandate along the Jordan River giving the
eastern sector to the Hashemite Arab King Abdullah as a reward
for his tribes support against the Ottoman Turks in World War I.
Abdallah's great grandson of the same name continues to rule
Arab eastern Palestine, today known as the Kingdom of Jordan.
Arab Jordan/Palestine invaded Jewish Israel/Palestine at the time
of its independence in 1948 and occupied what is known as the
West Bank. Jordan administered the West Bank, the border of
which was the armistice lines established between Israel and
Jordan in 1949, until the area was conquered by Israel as a
result of the June 1967 Six Day War.
The plan presently being floated, and worthy of support, calls for
a regional Palestinian Authority on the West Bank to form a
political link with Jordan, which would be called upon to
administer the territory's security and intelligence jointly with
Israel. Most of the Arabs on the West Bank were Jordanian
citizens prior to 1967 and many still are. Jordan, where the
Palestinian Arabs have achieved their political, national and
cultural rights, could eventually emerge as the primary
governmental authority for the Palestinian Arabs on the West
Bank. West Bank Palestinian Arabs would be re-united with
their Palestinian Arab compatriots on the East Bank in Jordan.
Jordan could eventually assume responsibility for the laws,
judicial system, public welfare, education, health, and other
aspects of Palestinian governance on the West Bank. Arafat and
the PA would be relegated to stirring up terror from the closely
watched confines of Gaza.
A long-term plan, implemented over decades, could involve a
confederation of the two Palestine's, Israel and Jordan, with joint
control of the West Bank. This could result from the
strengthening of political, economic, and even cultural ties
between the two Palestine's. Israel will remain Jewish, Jordan
Arab, with shared citizenships and populations in the West Bank.
Israeli dreams of a greater Israel, and Arab dreams of
incorporating Israel into their sacred "Ummah" could, for all
practical purposes, be relegated to the status of historical
fantasies.
Chuck Morse is a talk show host on Salem Radio/WROL in
Boston.
Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com